


Hold It to the Light

by peninsulam



Series: She Will [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drunkenness, F/F, Oral Sex, Quiet Sex, Trapped In A Closet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 21:28:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/996904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peninsulam/pseuds/peninsulam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sally, trembling with effort, trousers round her ankles, reflected on all the ways that dating women was awful. Not that she was dating Molly. She didn’t think she was anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold It to the Light

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [tartanfics](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tartanfics) for the final read-through, and to my dear [lbmisscharlie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie), for cheerfully providing all the handholding I seem to require.
> 
> This is the prequel to a larger fic, to be posted in the very near future. I saw the "waiting for a rescue" prompt for Let's Write Sherlock and I couldn't resist.

Sally, trembling with effort, trousers round her ankles, reflected on all the ways that dating women was awful. Not that she was dating Molly. She didn’t think she was anyway. That was her second-least favorite thing about dating a woman, because how do you know if you’re dating at all, until you’re actively snogging? And even then, she’d run into her fair share of straight girls at uni who just wanted to make out at a party to impress a boy on the other side of the room. Not that Molly was doing that. Probably not, anyway. Well, Greg was there with them, at their table, and Sally had thought, ages ago, that there might have been something going on with the two of them, but there didn’t seem to be anymore; the last few times the three of them had gone out like this, Molly had spent the entire time talking to Sally. But you could never be sure, not really.  
  
No, but the very worst thing about dating a woman was definitely this: both of you needing to take a piss at the same time in a two-stall loo. There was nothing to take the shine off a long evening of flirting and drinking like squatting over a filthy toilet trying desperately not to pass gas, trying not to listen to the sounds from the next stall over.  
  
They’d been talking animatedly, up until then, smiling too much, laughing at things that weren’t properly jokes. Molly couldn’t stop raking her fingers through her hair, which she’d worn down, and Sally loved it when she wore it down. Her own fingers itched to reach out and tangle in it, and eventually she had to sit on her hands to stop herself. But now she was pissing in an ice-cold toilet as quietly and quickly as she could--christ, she shouldn’t have had that last pint, it was taking forever--and Molly had flushed, while Sally was still going. Finally she finished, straightened her clothes. Work clothes--she hadn't had time to change--where Molly was in an odd dress-and-cardigan combination that didn’t quite match: the dress was light and summery, in a coral color that matched her blushes, while the cardigan was a heavy, pilled professorial thing, complete with elbow patches, in an unfortunate shade of oatmeal. She’d probably forgotten how cold it still was, looking at the calendar rather than the forecast, and had popped back into her flat to grab whatever was hanging on the hook by the door. Sally collected herself as best she could and stepped out of the stall.  
  
Molly was at the sink, drying her hands, staring at Sally through the mirror with a mortified expression on her face. Sally burst out laughing, and Molly did the same. It wasn't that funny: just an awkward moment and a look; but they'd been laughing all night, so it came on easily. Molly's hand was raised as though to cover her teeth, but she'd tossed her head back giggling, so her smile was wide and bright and wonderfully visible. Sally recovered first. “Oh thank god. That was so awkward. We should have coordinated.”  
  
Molly took a heaving breath, looked in the mirror to dab at the tears in her eyes, and grinned back at her. "Definitely. One more round, and if I need to use the loo again you'll get a five-minute warning." And that settled it, sort of: friends don't feel awkward pissing next to each other. Dates do. Or, potential dates, because this definitely wasn't a date yet, but here was the evidence that there could be one in the future. Except Molly really was exceptionally shy sometimes, so maybe she would feel weird about pissing next to a friend. Hell.  
  
-  
  
If Molly hadn’t stumbled on her narrow heels in the hall, Sally would have been so overwhelmed by her own optimism that she’d have walked right into Bob Mitchell instead of hearing him first. Sally had caught Molly around her waist, and was helping to pull her up, fingers trapping themselves in the open knit of her cardigan, when she heard his voice, so close he was practically in her ear, greeting the bartender. She gripped Molly's shoulder to hold her still, and, peeking around the corner, nearly jumped when she saw Bob sitting less than three feet from her: he was red in the face; his shoulders were wider than she'd remembered.  
  
Molly grabbed her from behind to peer around her shoulder, still giggling breathlessly from her fall. "God, no one was watching, were they?" Mitchell began to turn at the noise, and Sally pulled back, panicked. She darted through the open door next to them, and before she could wave her off, Molly tripped in behind her, laughing in delight and shutting the door. "What's this, then?" Molly asked, teasing, not noticing in the dark -- jesus, where was the light switch? -- that Sally was silently panicking.  
  
"Quiet, Molly."  
  
" _Excuse_ me?"  
  
"Oh, no, I didn't..." Sally whispered. "Sorry, I just. I saw someone I really shouldn’t have seen. Christ, this is impossible, how could he be--"  
  
"Oh! Ohhhh, God. Sally. Jesus. I didn’t--” He voice was pleading, terrified.  
  
“What? No, it’s no one you know. Who on earth are you on about?”  
  
“Um, Anderson. We just, uh, really don’t get on. I was afraid he’d come out looking for you. Can I stop whispering now? Only it's so loud out there, I really don't think he'll hear us."  
  
Sally leaned against the door and listened to the din of the Friday-night crowd. "You're right," she said in her normal speaking voice. "Sorry, really. I think if I call Greg he can sort everything. My mobile's at the table though."  
  
"Oh, I've got mine." Sally heard Molly scrabbling for her pockets -- the cardigan was a wise choice after all -- then sighed in relief to see Molly's face glow in the pale light of her smartphone.  
  
"Christ, is this a mop closet?"  
  
"Looks like, yeah. Um...wow, no light switch. Oh, and my battery's almost dead."  
  
"Well, give it, let me call him."  
  
Molly held it to her chest, illuminating her cleavage, which was a nice touch, if she was trying to be infuriating. "Only I don't have his number. Do you know it?"  
  
"I know it's in my phone, on the table. Who remembers phone numbers? Wait, how don't you have his number? Weren't you dating or something?"  
  
"Not really. I mean, a couple of times, but it didn't go anywhere, we're just friends. We hardly ever talk, except for at work or on Facebook."  
  
Sally sighed. "Of course you do. Well, send him a Facebook message then, there's a girl. He’s got a smartphone; he’ll see it, right?"  
  
Molly wrinkled her forehead at her phone, the dim light illuminating the creases in her skin. It shouldn't have been attractive. "Okay. What do I tell him though? Help, hiding in a mop closet from a bloke Sally doesn't want to see? Send backup?"  
  
Sally sighed. "Give it. I'll write it."  
  
Molly finally passed it over. "Who is he, anyway? Another ex?"  
  
"I am not afraid of my exes. His name's Bob Mitchell, and I arrested him on domestic violence and child abuse charges three years ago. I can't believe he's out already."  
  
"Oh no, were you with Lestrade then? Is there going to be a fight when Mitchell sees him?"  
  
"No, that's..." Sally paused to finish her message to Lestrade, and crossed her fingers hoping he'd see it. "That's before I was in Major Crimes. Lestrade's safe enough, I just need someone to give us the all-clear before I go out there with three pints in me and you to look after. He’s, uh, pretty volatile, and the last time I saw him he came after me with a tire iron."  
  
"You don't have to look after me!"  
  
"You're pissed, and I _want_ to look after you."  
  
Molly tittered. "Suppose I am a bit. God, my feet are killing me but there's no way I'm taking my shoes off in here."  
  
Sally had just been thinking the same: she wore heels at work but wasn't used to staying in them for so long. "Look, how about you go out there just to see if he's still sitting by the bar. He's, um, big tall white bloke, no hair, ears stick out a bit. Roundabout forty by now, must be. I think he was wearing a black t-shirt. If he's there, go talk to Greg, and he can take care of it." Molly nodded with the forced concentration of the drunk. She fumbled a bit for the doorknob, and the sound of it clicking helplessly back and forth in her hand made Sally's heart sink.  
  
"We're stuck in here, aren't we?"  
  
"Damn it. What did you follow me in for, anyway?"  
  
"I dunno." The lie in Molly’s voice was evident.  
  
"Really, though."  
  
"I thought." She was silent for a long moment.  
  
"Out with it."  
  
"I thought you were going to kiss me or something." Sally began to laugh, delighted, but of course Molly misunderstood. "Don't laugh at me! You're right, I'm a little pissed, it was stupid. God, don't tease me about it, okay?" Molly gave the doorknob another futile turn. “Look, I’m just going to call for someone to let us out of here. I shouldn’t have said it.”  
  
“Molly!” Sally protested, gripping her arm through her cardigan. “I wasn’t—”  
  
“Tom, you bastard!” Bob Mitchell’s voice was so close he could have been in the closet with them. There was a pause, then continued shouting at Tom on the other end of the call. Sally shuddered and pulled Molly close to her, whispering as softly as she could in her ear, “It’s him. Don’t make a sound.”  
  
Molly was holding herself apart from Sally as best she was able; she must still have felt embarrassed, silly thing that she was. Bob’s voice was a boorish drone behind them, and Sally waved her free hand, the one not tucked around Molly’s waist, slowly in the air in front of her, trying to find Molly’s head. She brushed up against fine, cool, hair, and Molly breathed in sharply. Sally shushed her, a nearly silent huff of air between her teeth. Her face was so close to Molly’s she could feel the echo of her own breath. Molly, who had come in here looking for a kiss.  
  
Sally didn’t want to chance this: it was pitch black, and if she dove down for a kiss right now, she’d end up planting one on Molly’s nostril or something. So she let her hand slide forward from where it rested at the nape of Molly’s neck, fanning through her hair, to cup her face. But Molly didn’t seem worried about Sally’s careful planning: she leaned in and kissed her on the side of her chin, and made a disappointed sound in her throat, until Sally had reoriented their faces and covered Molly’s clumsy mouth with her own. Molly was an eager kisser, lips quick and firm and lovely. She tasted of ale and chips and some sort of fruity lip gloss, and it was all Sally could do not to moan into her mouth.  
  
Without speaking, without seeing, Sally could feel Molly’s hum of satisfaction. They grinned, pulling back as though to look at each other, but instead there was only blackness and the damp heat of an unventilated room. Sally was a quick learner, though, and fell into a pattern of searching for Molly with her hands and then chasing after with her mouth. In this way she was successfully able to suck softly at Molly’s ears, which didn’t seem to do much for her, and then her neck, which did. She started in gently, then began grazing her teeth down to Molly’s shoulder, pushing her cardigan roughly aside as she went. Molly’s collarbones were things of beauty, she knew, and though she couldn’t see them, the valleys above them tasted gorgeous: warm and salty with sweat. There was a wall just two feet behind Molly’s back, with some large boxes leaned up against it. Still kissing and licking at Molly’s skin eagerly (and now she imagined the flush that must be rising beneath her mouth), Sally began to feel around the tiny closet, and finally found an empty patch of wall. She held on to Molly’s waist and shoulder tightly, and steered her as carefully as she could toward it.  
  
Sally pressed her firmly into the wall, her hands splayed around Molly’s tiny ribcage.  She traced the neckline of Molly’s dress with her fingertips, dipping just below to the slight swell of her breasts, letting her thumbs drag over Molly’s nipples, almost as an afterthought. Molly’s high, breathy sigh filled the closet, and Sally stopped short, listening for Mitchell’s voice, steady and vulgar behind the door. She leaned in to Molly’s ear to whisper, “Need me to stop?”  
  
Molly shook her head quickly, her hair flicking around Sally’s shoulder and neck. “Don’t stop, I’ll be quiet.”  
  
“I’ll have to make it a challenge, then.” Molly laughed quietly, and Sally pulled the front of her dress aside, cupping Molly’s breast through her thin, satiny bra, tracing the tiny ridges of her hard nipple. Molly’s laugh turned into a quiet groan, and she heaved her chest deliberately against Sally’s hand, looking for friction. “I wasn’t sure you even liked women.”  
  
“Well now you’re sure,” Molly whispered, “so you can shut it and show me how much you like me, okay?” Sally yanked down the cup of her bra and put her mouth wide around Molly’s breast, biting just enough to make Molly gasp. This was the most fun Sally had had in ages, and she was having it in a mop closet. She could have laughed, but her mouth was occupied. Instead she slid one hand down to Molly’s thigh, just teasing, rubbing her up and down, waiting for a green light. But it was pitch black, after all, and she’d asked Molly to stay quiet, and everything here looked like consent. It wasn’t enough. Sally drew her hand back up to Molly’s shoulder, until Molly huffed irritably and grabbed Sally’s wrist, shoving it down roughly to her rather short hemline. That, she thought, was answer enough, and she wasted no time in reaching under Molly’s dress, pushing it up so that she could stroke her stomach and hip with one hand, while with the other she ran her fingertips down the slick material of Molly’s knickers. By the feel of them, they were the same satiny material as her bra, but Sally supposed a lot of things could match in the dark. Her fingers slipped under the fabric and came back slippery and fragrant: the smell of it was driving Sally mad. Molly was silent, but for her panting; but for her heaving chest and writhing hips, which, under Sally’s searching fingertips, were loud enough to make Sally’s blood sing with lust and pride, her two favorites. When Sally began to slip her knickers down, Molly stilled, and Sally stopped in turn.  
  
“Tell me what you want,” Sally whispered, breathing the words directly into Molly’s ear. “Or don’t want.”  
  
“Ah. Maybe no penetration? If that’s okay? I mean, maybe later, I just don’t always—”  
  
“Hush.” The lino was cold against Sally’s knees when she kneeled on it, but it warmed up quickly. Her cheek was held firmly to Molly’s thigh, and she breathed onto it, licked it, asked, as quietly as she could, “May I?”  
  
Molly’s silent laugh left her in a rush of air, pressing her hand to the crown of Sally’s head in assent. Sally craned her neck up awkwardly, pressing her face into Molly’s cunt, doing nothing but smelling for a moment, relishing the feel of it against her lips, then dragging her tongue along the seam of her labia, licking back up toward her clit without hitting it just yet. Molly’s hiss of satisfaction was like air escaping a car tire, a delicious release of pressure. Sally’s heart beat madly and her tongue tingled at the sharp taste, the slippery wetness: she buried herself in it, as much for her own pleasure as Molly’s. She lapped like a cat, the flat of her tongue dragging wetly over slick folds. When she suckled softly at Molly’s clit, and then harder, Molly grabbed at her hair and let go quickly, with a soft pat that must have been an apology. But she kept her hand on Sally’s head, pressing Sally’s face harder against her in a silent request.

The sounds of her desperation, muffled against something--her palm, her arm, a bitten lip, perhaps--were so unutterably sexy that Sally found herself wishing for something to grind against. She was becoming distracted by her own heavy, sodden arousal, and that couldn’t happen, not while Molly was silently begging above her. She dug her nails (short nails, but maybe not as short as they should be if this thing with Molly continued, she thought) into the backs of Molly’s thighs, and sucked in earnest, her tongue rubbing up over Molly’s clit as she felt it harden. Molly’s orgasm was a hard, harsh and trembling thing, as though Sally had shocked it out of her, and when it passed, she slumped back against the wall, sliding almost to the floor into a deep and collapsing squat. They both lay in a heap, breathing roughly, Sally still impossibly aroused, but too overwhelmed to make Molly move.  
  
She realized, in the silence, that…it was silent. Not really: the thrumming of the crowded bar was steady. But Mitchell’s voice had disappeared. “Molls.”  
  
Molly giggled. “ _Molls_?”  
  
“Sorry, is that--”  
  
“It’s fine, Sally.”  
  
Sally grinned, and remembered herself. “I think Mitchell’s gone. Or not by the door, anyway. Should we try knocking for someone, do you think?”  
  
“Um. Yeah. In a minute.” Molly pushed herself forward into Sally’s arms and kissed her hard, tasting the mellowed tang of herself, no doubt, and the thought nearly made Sally’s legs give way.  “I’ve got something I wanted to take care of first.”  
  
And that was when Greg barged in.  
  
\--  
  
“Oh, for christ’s sake!”  
  
The sudden glare was blinding, for all that Greg was taking up most of the narrow doorway. Sally couldn’t see his face, darkened as it was, but she really didn’t need to. He thunked his head against the doorjamb, mostly in an effort, it seemed, to avert his eyes. She took stock while Molly made humiliated squeaks and covered her face. Molly looked completely, obviously mid-shag. The flush was brightest on her cheeks and ears, but it extended gradually down to her chest, traveling past reddened splotches on her smooth neck, and a conspicuous bite-mark on her shoulder. She must have noticed Sally’s appreciative glance, because she immediately shrugged her cardigan back up onto her shoulders, shooting Sally a stern look that turned into an amused one as soon as it made contact. At least neither of them was naked, or near it: Molly’s dress had fallen back into place, and, while half of her bra was still pulled down, her dress had been tugged up to cover her breast.  Her hair was a bit messy, but one of the charms of stick-straight, fine hair like hers seemed to be that you couldn’t inflict too much damage on it. Sally shuddered to think of what her own looked like, then shuddered again at the memory of Molly tugging at the hair at the nape of her neck, wild and insatiable while she came.  
  
“Um,” Molly whispered. Sally looked up to see her pantomiming wiping her face. Reaching up, she found that she was still covered in sticking, drying wetness, and she began to laugh helplessly.  
  
“You…” Lestrade began, speaking into the doorframe still, apparently lost for words. “Did you—. Was Bob Mitchell actually here, or was this—. Please tell me you weren’t trying to get me in here to watch whatever the two of you were doing.”  
  
Molly seemed to have absorbed her mortification enough to look him in the eye. Not that he was looking at her: he was doing everything he could to _not_ look at her, which was rather charming. “No! No, God no, of course he was here, he was right in front of the door, and then we were trapped in here. I.” Her voice dropped a bit, and she remembered her embarrassment. “I may have forgotten that we’d messaged you. Mind giving us a minute?”  
  
“Oh, please, continue, didn’t mean to interrupt.” The exasperation in his voice was nearly lethal.  
  
“She means she needs a minute in the loo to make herself _presentable_ , Lestrade,” Sally grumbled.  
  
“Yeah, well, you may want to join her, Sally. Not join her. Take turns. Whatever, I don’t care.”  
  
It was a bit like being caught out by your mum, Sally thought. She got up gingerly and gave Molly a hand, pushing at the small of her back to scoot her along to the toilets, noting Lestrade’s disapproving glare. Once Molly was tripping down the hallway, he retreated to their table, shaking his head and leaving Sally to collect herself.  
  
Filled with dim light, the closet looked much smaller than it had felt. There were paper hand towels on the wall above the sink—how had she not noticed that there was a sink?—and Sally took a moment to wipe at her face with a damp one, chucking it in the bin and joining Greg. He looked less angry now, though he was hunched over the table with his hands clasped in front of him. Sally couldn’t tell if his eyes looked sad or not: they always seemed to hold a certain amount of melancholy. She nearly asked him why things hadn’t worked out with him and Molly: if they’d actually dated for a bit like she’d said. She couldn’t find it in herself to be jealous; he was too good a man for that, and he was too good a friend to Molly. But now wasn’t the time. She sat down across from him, and he finally looked at her; her evident composure seemed to have relaxed him.  
  
“Mitchell’s gone, then?” she asked.  
  
“Must be. By the time I saw the message I couldn’t find any sign of him. Must have ducked out.”  
  
“You weren’t meant to see that, you know,” Sally mumbled, finally sheepish.  
  
“Bit too late for that. Wish I could delete things sometimes, like—”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“So are the two of you…”  
  
“I don’t know yet.”  
  
“Yeah. So. I’m not going to tell you to take care of her, because that’s none of my business, but. Well.”  
  
“Take care of her.” Sally nodded wryly. “I will, though. If that's what she wants. Just. You’re good for her too, right? You can still be good for her.”  
  
They both heard the door of the toilets slam shut. “Yeah. We’ll talk, if she'll let me. I’ll keep her company while you wash up your stupid face. Jesus. And when you get back here I’m _leaving_. I’m too old for this.”  
  
Sally laughed quietly and clapped him on the shoulder, refusing to let her embarrassment rise to the surface. Turning the corner at the bar, Molly was polished as ever. She smiled hesitantly, and on seeing Sally’s answering smile, laughed to herself, skipping a bit in her heels, hardly enough to notice. Just enough to make Sally’s stomach flip happily. When they neared each other, Sally held out an arm to bar her passage, and gently drew it around Molly’s waist, murmuring “Want to come back to mine tonight?”  
  
“’Course I do. We have unfinished business. Hurry up.” And she trotted off to talk to Greg, who shot Sally a fond, disgusted look. Sally couldn’t believe her luck. She couldn’t believe it was only beginning.


End file.
